Dear Dictionary,
I would like to lodge a complaint about the pronunciation of Synecdoche. My husband and I were discussing this last night, and I have been thinking about it all morning because it really bothers me. I don’t understand why you insist on pronouncing it syn-ec-do-che (si-nek-duh-kee). I even looked it up today because I thought for sure that he must be wrong. After all, when we speak of anecdotes, we don’t pronounce those an-ik-duh-tee, so why add the "kee" onto the end of Synecdoche??
And honestly, why do we need this word to begin with? Here is the definition that you provided:
--> 'A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special, as in ten sail for ten ships or a Croesus for a rich man.'
There are already two other words that I can think of that work just as well: Nickname and Alias. Having a fancy smancy word (that is pronounced incorrectly) seems redundant to me and totally unnecessary. Synecdochically speaking of course.
To be taken very seriously – yours truly,
Mingle
